Clear Air and Cocoa
by Laughter's Tears
Summary: His brothers weren't the only ones Leo hurt with his absence. It's time to clear the air with an old friend so that healing can begin. Set after TMNT.


This is another one of my random ideas, though not along the normal humor vein.

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**Genuine forgiveness does not deny anger, but faces it head on.**  
**-Alice Duer Miller**

It was well after dark when the knock came at the window-frame. April turned and smiled, an unspoken welcome to the turtle standing on her fire escape.  
Leo entered the apartment and glanced around, taking in the details. The autographed baseball displayed proudly next to the antique bookends supporting a collection of scientific tomes and manuals. The punching bag hung next to a rack of wooden bokken; a yoga mat was rolled up next to a set of free-weights. Bridal magazines sat next to motorcycle magazines upon the coffee table. There were hockey sticks and baseball bats poking out from among the umbrellas in the stand by the door. April and Casey's relationship really had flourished while he was away. It was one of the few nuggets of good news that he'd come back to.

"You just missed them," April said, snapping Leo's attention away from his examination of his friends' home, "but I heard Casey mention something about the docks."

"That's alright. Actually, I've been meaning to talk with you for some time now," Leo said.

April put down the book she'd been studying and raised an eyebrow, "Oh?"

"About Central America," Leo clarified, not missing the expression on April's face. No, he didn't really want to talk about it either.

April toyed with the highlighter in her hand. "Leo… the important thing is that you came back," She spoke slowly, as if she had researched and rehearsed this response.

Leo was silent for several moments. "We both know that isn't completely true."

The ticking of the clock on the wall filled the uneasy silence.

April's grip on the highlighter tightened as she thought about how long they'd waited. About the grey hairs she'd begun to notice on Master Splinter, about the dark circles under Donnie's eyes and the hard look in Raph's that wouldn't leave. About the faraway look in Mikey's, or the longing gazes he'd send out her window at the rooftops. About the pit in her stomach every time she picked up a bokken.  
And when she'd finally found him, finally told him how much he was missed, how much he was _needed_, he'd thrown her appeals aside.

"It's okay, April. You can let it out. I can take it," Leo murmured as he watched her glare a hole in the table.

Something inside her snapped, "If you couldn't handle solo training, or writing a simple letter to let us know that you were _alive_, what makes you think that you can handle what I have to say?" she asked, her words burning with ice. April looked up, "Good _God,_ Leo! What on earth possessed you to think that we were all _fine_ without you? When I found you out there in that jungle, what part of _your brothers need you_ was so hard to comprehend?"

Leo looked down at the table. "It took a while after you left for it to get through to me." April's eyes narrowed.

"I don't believe that's the whole of it." She snapped, "You'd already been there a while, right? You knew the area. And you know me. You _know _that I do my research."  
"What I told you about local legends, that was true. I heard that legend from a refugee through an interpreter at a dig over one hundred miles from where I found you."

Leo's eyes widened, he opened his mouth, but April held up her hand.

"But wait! There's more! You found me alone. The reasons for that are two-fold. First, I didn't want to have to lose a guide if I actually found you. And second, with the political and military situation in the region, I couldn't obtain a guide anyways. So yes, I traveled into that region of the country alone. Looking for you, because of some campfire story. Sounds crazy, right?"

Leo's was staring at her in wide eyed shock. He'd surmised some of what she was telling him in the hours after she left, but not the extent to which she had gone out of her way and risked her own safety just on the off chance of stumbling across him. And she was not yet finished.

"But that's just what I went through to find you. And you want to know what's even crazier? That I went to all that trouble, and came back empty-handed. Do you think that I told any of your brothers about my little excursion? Hell no! I told Casey because… well, just in case something _did_ happen to me." she'd grown quiet,  
"I knew from the start that what I was doing was a long-shot. I just never imagined actually finding you playing out like that. Thank God I didn't tell your brothers."  
April was resting her elbows on the table now, holding her chin in her hands.

Leo just stared at his lap for a long while.

"I am so sorry April." He finally said. There was little else to say. Everything had already been done and pretty words could not erase it.

April smiled wanly at him. "Your apology is inadequate, but it's a good start. Want some cocoa?"

He looked up, confused at the offer of a friendly beverage after that rant.

April just smiled at him and put a hand on his shoulder. "In the end, you did come back."

The bridges that had been burned couldn't be rebuilt in one night; but once the anger had been cleared away, a long and overdue talk over cocoa made a good start for both of them.

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So there you have it. This is something a bit different than the things I normally write. I hope you enjoyed it.  
Reviews are not required but much appreciated nonetheless. :)  
(Oh, and I have no claim upon the characters you see here.)


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